Obesity alert puts fizz into sales of diet cola
LOUISE BARNETT
HEALTH warnings about the dangers of obesity appear to be finally getting through, with the latest figures showing Britons now spend more money on diet cola drinks in shops than on the original sugary varieties.
Diet cola sales in supermarkets, shops and off-licences rose by 6.6 per cent to more than £600 million in the year to December 2005, market analysts AC Nielsen said.
Meanwhile, standard cola dropped by 3 per cent to £584 million over the same period.
It meant shoppers bought 838 million litres of canned and bottled diet colas - up 5.1 per cent on the previous year's 797 million.
The volume of standard colas sold over the 12 months dropped by 4.8 per cent from 788 million to 750 million. The analysts' figures are based on sales data gathered from more than 82,000 UK shops, supermarkets, forecourt stores and off-licences.
They reveal that standard Coca-Cola is the number one cola brand sold in shops, followed by Diet Coke.
Standard Pepsi Cola came third, followed by diet Pepsi Max in fourth place. The data was produced for soft drink firm Britvic's annual report on the sector, launched last week.
That report shows a growing trend towards healthier drinks. Smoothies were the biggest winners of 2005, with shop sales up 72 per cent to £79 million.
Colas continued to dominate the soft drinks sector with a 22 per cent share, followed by pure juice at 17 per cent and mineral water at 11 per cent.
Andrew Marsden, strategy marketing director at Britvic, said the launch of flavoured diet colas plus greater health awareness, had boosted the sector.
Describing the increase in diet cola sales, he said: "It is the sheer range of new alternatives in terms of flavours which is the new dimension.
"It has sparked a whole raft of manufacturers doing interesting things and that trend is set to accelerate."
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